Downtown's the place to be Saturday: Loft tours coincide with blues and barbecue festival

The United Church Homes offices on the third floor of 110 S. State St., at the southeast corner of Center and State streets, will be a stop on the self-guided loft tours Saturday.(Photo: Sarah Volpenhein/Marion Star)

MARION — Visitors to downtown Marion this weekend can enjoy expansive city views, barbecue and blues.

This year marks the second for the WDIF Blues and Barbecue Festival and the fourth for the Lofty Spaces and Unique Places Loft Tours, both of which are happening Saturday in downtown Marion.

The nonprofit Downtown Marion, Inc., which usually puts on the loft tours in July, decided to move the event back this year in the hopes of avoiding the sometimes-sweltering summer temperatures. It seems the nonprofit will have its wish, with the National Weather Service predicting mostly sunny skies and temperatures reaching a high of 63 degrees.

The loft tour shows off the residential side of downtown, but will also showcase new restaurants and shops that have moved downtown, encouraging people to come downtown to shop and eat.

"Downtown is gaining a lot of unique restaurants," said Deb Cooper, co-chairwoman of the Downtown Marion committee that organizes the tour.

The self-guided tour, which runs from 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday, includes stops at nine locations — some residential lofts, some commercial spaces — and five dining and shopping locations, Cooper said.

Among the loft spaces on the tour is the third floor of 141-143 E. Center St., where there is a loft apartment with high ceilings, exposed brick walls and a view of the county courthouse.

The building, which once housed the Marion Piano Company, now is home to the apartment, offices on the second floor and a restaurant on the first floor.

Many of the buildings on the loft tours, including the apartment at 141 E. Center St., have been touched at one time or another by local real estate developer Lois Fisher, who began converting abandoned upper floors to living lofts in the late 1990s.

Fisher has been a major proponent of efforts to revitalize Marion's downtown.

"We deserve what our forefathers gave to us in these wonderful old buildings," she said in a July interview. "They've been here for 100 years and if we preserve them, they'll be here for the next 100 years."

Tour-goers will be able to appreciate some of those old buildings, with their exposed brick and detailed cornices.

Tickets cost $15 per person and can be purchased at the old Crown Tower building, 136 S. Prospect St., where Henry Lumber Co. is building what will be a showroom. That's where the tour begins.

Tour-goers also will get a peek of two restaurants moving downtown that have yet to open — Tres Tapas, a Mexican restaurant and tequila bar, and Twenty-Nine Brewpub and Ta Die For Cupcakes, a local wood-fired pizza restaurant, brewery and bakery that has moved from its former location on Ohio 95.

After the tour, people can head to the parking lot behind the Marion County building, 222 W. Center St., to eat some barbecue and listen to the blues.

"Part of my dream with the blues station is to help turn Marion into kind of a blues hub," said Spencer Phelps, general manager of blues radio station WDIF-FM in Marion. "One of the key pillars of a blues hub is a good blues and barbecue festival."

Phelps hopes to keep growing the festival, which is from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday. The music kicks off at 1 p.m. with local blues musician Patrick Pierce. Five other Ohio-based bands are set to take the stage, including The Greezy Bullets and Dock Adams and Blues Hammer.

There will be a beer garden and barbecue vendors, including Big Pappy's BBQ, Reece's Barbecue, Smokin' Dick's BBQ, Parker and Sons Bar-Be-Que and Tackett's Southern Bar-B-Que.